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[SOLVED] Four monitors, Sandy Bridge Z68 plus 8800GT

post #1 of 11
5/21/11 at 2:34am
Thread Starter 
UPDATE: The answer is yes you can

So I just ordered $700 worth of new Sandy Bridge goodness for my mom. She does trading and needs the extra screen real estate for multiple graphs that she monitors, and will be doing some encoding on the side.

i5 2500K
GIGABYTE GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3
4 x Acer G215HAbd 21.5" 1920x1080
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

She has an EVGA 8800GT 512MB from her previous build with 2 DVI outputs.

The plan is to use her 8800GT in conjunction with the onboard video...2 DVI outputs from the 8800GT, a DVI output from the onboard, and a HDMI-DVI cable from the onboard.

This will NOT be a gaming rig, graphs/desktop only.

Will this work like I think it will, or will we need to get another card? The motherboard manual on Gigabyte's website says it does support dual monitors, and only mentions that you can't use a DVI->VGA adapter on the DVI port. It does not list any limitations on which ports can be used simultaneously.

Can anyone see any problems with doing this? I believe two video drivers won't be a problem will it? Anything special I need to know? I would like to keep it to one card, as this is a mATX build, and space is at a premium (Silverstone SG02).

Thanks!
Edited by c00lkatz - 5/28/11 at 2:42am
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post #2 of 11
5/21/11 at 8:31pm
Thread Starter 
I guess I'll be the first one to attempt it and let you all know how it goes lol.
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post #3 of 11
5/21/11 at 8:39pm
Everything just seems really imbalanced - if she only needs it for 2D apps then why not go for a H67 mobo? Good luck with getting it running though, I thought you couldn't use onboard video with a discrete gpu?

BTW, I trade as well and my sig rig was built with that in mind (also for a little gaming, so I opted for a 6970 that could game at max settings on 1 monitor and support 6 monitors for charts).
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post #4 of 11
5/21/11 at 9:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by indigo995 View Post
if she only needs it for 2D apps then why not go for a H67 mobo? Good luck with getting it running though, I thought you couldn't use onboard video with a discrete gpu?

In theory z68 mobo with lucid virtu will allow him to use the sandybridge GPU die in addition to his discrete GPU
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post #5 of 11
5/21/11 at 9:08pm
Get a 6850 and run 4 monitors off it??
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post #6 of 11
5/21/11 at 9:13pm
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Even if space is at a premium, the 8800GT and a small card, like a GT 430, would work well together for 4 monitors.
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post #7 of 11
5/21/11 at 9:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by indigo995 View Post
Everything just seems really imbalanced - if she only needs it for 2D apps then why not go for a H67 mobo? Good luck with getting it running though, I thought you couldn't use onboard video with a discrete gpu?

BTW, I trade as well and my sig rig was built with that in mind (also for a little gaming, so I opted for a 6970 that could game at max settings on 1 monitor and support 6 monitors for charts).
I do plan a 4.0GHz mild overclock, and she wants to encode, which I figured the Z68 would be good for. She also has a AData S599 60GB SSD, and wanted the option to use it for cache later on down the line. This rig needs to last her for a while, so I wanted to get the most feature-rich motherboard I could find in the ~$150 price range that is still mATX (she's not a fan of huge cases).

She already has the 8800GT with a Duorb on it, which is perfect since it's small, low power, and runs cool, all of which is important in a mATX build.

If I can't get the onboard to work like I want, I'll just throw in another el-cheapo PCI-E card and be done with it. That's one reason I got a board with 3 PCI-E x16 slots, so that we can add more cards for more monitors later on down the line.

I was hoping there was someone out there who may have done this and can offer some advice. I will admit this is probably somewhat of an oddball setup around here, since most of us concentrate on gaming rigs and wouldn't think about using onboard.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpeedNuggeT View Post
Get a 6850 and run 4 monitors off it??
She already has the 8800GT, so why not try to make it work with what she's got? She doesn't game AT ALL (except for Angry Birds on her Xoom lol), so such a card would be a waste.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jellis142 View Post
Even if space is at a premium, the 8800GT and a small card, like a GT 430, would work well together for 4 monitors.
I was thinking around the same. I'm hoping we don't have to spend anymore money on this, though. Already $700 into it just for the PC (not including the 3 additional monitors) plus reusing some of her older hardware.
Edited by c00lkatz - 5/21/11 at 9:18pm
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post #8 of 11
5/28/11 at 2:41am
Thread Starter 
UPDATE: It worked!

All I had to do was tell the onboard GPU to stay on all the time in the BIOS, load up the drivers, hook up the displays, and go into the display properties of Windows to set them up and expand them correctly all together (Nvidia and Intel's control panels would only allow you to control the two displays hooked up to them obviously). I have 2 monitors hooked up through DVI on the 8800GT, 1 monitor on the onboard DVI, and 1 monitor on the onboard HDMI w/ an HDMI-->DVI cable, with one primary and 3 expanded setup in a 4-monitor square (still need to mount them though). Works great!

Just thought I'd post the results for anyone else looking to do this in the future.
Edited by c00lkatz - 5/28/11 at 2:44am
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post #9 of 11
5/30/11 at 7:01am
Hi,

I'm having the same issue right now, building my own trading machine and wanted to use 4 monitors.

Do you think this feature will work on any Z68 mobo? (I'm thinking of buying the AsRock Z68 PRO3-M and add a cheap graphic card to support 4 monitors).

THx!
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post #10 of 11
5/30/11 at 9:09pm
Thread Starter 
I don't see why not. You may even be able to use a cheaper H-series board if you don't care about overclocking or SSD caching.

See if you can download the mobo's manual and take a look at the specs, options, and menus.

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